Caged Creatures
by CaveDwellers
Summary: Reiner, of all people, manages to make it back to their homeland, but Annie and Bertholdt are left behind as prisoners of the state, cleaning up the pieces in the war-damaged human territory. Where do you belong, if you aren't a warrior or a human? Sometimes, it's just with each other.


**A/N: I'm having a lot of fun with all of this writing-speculation. ;P I don't necessarily think this is what's going to happen in the canon, but it's a fun idea to play with. Not so happy with the last half of this, but mostly because my writing flow got interrupted and I think I took this in a direction I didn't originally intend (not that I remember the original direction). Also, I'm not so sure if Annie will ever lighten up. I like to think that she could, if she's given enough time. That's just the optimist in me, though. **

**DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters.**

**WARNING: Do not read if you only watch the anime! This is up to date as far as the MANGA is concerned! Along with a lot of speculation, there are MAJOR SPOILERS. You have been warned.**

**.:;;:.**

Annie doesn't register the passage of time when she's in crystal. At least, not in the traditional sense. She is aware that time is relentlessly marching on, in the abstract, so when she chooses to break out of her cocoon she is not completely without an idea of how long she's been in there. That's about it, though. She knows if a small amount of time has passed, or a lot, but anything more specific is beyond her.

She almost doesn't leave. Even the boredom of being in crystal is better than facing all of the people who were foolish enough to trust her to begin with, despite her repeated and open-faced confessions of selfishness. She can stay in crystal for years—decades, _centuries_ if she wants to—but she doesn't. It's a lot like her reasons for not killing the clever Armin when she had the chance, muddled and inexplicable and, ultimately, impossible to defy.

Annie is a selfish person, by nature and by choice. Or maybe she's simply chosen for it to be her nature. No matter—the point remains: Annie is selfish.

She only leaves because she's bored, and because she hardly thinks Bertholdt and Reiner will have any more success capturing and keeping Eren than she did. She's a far more experienced and capable warrior than they are; there is a reason Annie is here. Those fools are lost children, bumbling and hopeless.

They are, however good at raising such a commotion that Annie will be able to find them (and Eren) all the easier for it. Not only that, but their presence will split the Legions' attention and give her a tactical advantage. She just needs to get out from the underground location her crystal pod is undoubtedly stored in.

After that, it's just a matter of getting back on schedule with finding Eren, and then getting the hell out of here and back home. Annie isn't stupid; she knows it won't be easy—but if anyone can do it, it's her.

Annie is a selfish person. This is a fact. So why is she always the one who cleans up the messes others leave behind?

**.:;;:.**

Annie is a prisoner bordering on serfdom. They've given her another title, but she's a prisoner and everyone knows.

Reiner—of all people, _Reiner—_managed to get away. He managed to get home. A part of Annie loathes him for that, but he also went home empty-handed. Ymir (probably at Historia's urgings) changed allegiances again. By doing this, she also managed to come out as the heroine who saved the human race. She not only managed to keep Eren from capture, but she also revealed a practical way for the Scouting Legion to subdue titans and titan-shifters alike without killing or injuring them (or the people inside). This information also made it possible for Hanji to finally figure out the antidote for the titan epidemic, restoring nearly unimaginable numbers of normal human citizens.

Now, of course, Ymir and Historia are exalted heroes. Annie and Bertholdt, as despised traitors of the human race, will never experience a single day of freedom again. Ymir gets to keep her potential to turn into a titan along with Eren, just in case the epidemic returns, but Bertholdt and Annie had the antidote forcefully injected into their systems. They will never know true power again. They live in intense, private shame that none except for the departed Reiner could understand, because they will never be warriors again.

Oh yes, and Ymir also gets any and everything she could ever want for the rest of her natural life, despite the fact that her 60 years as a titan outside of the walls have already made her exceed the natural human lifespan. Nobody remembers that. Even if they do, nobody cares, because Ymir is a fucking hero and that's all they fucking see.

That traitor _bitch_.

Ymir doesn't revel in her new social status, and she doesn't rub it in—she hardly appears to notice that Annie and Bertholdt still exist, honestly—but Annie hates her anyway. The world has always been Annie's enemy, and prior to this she has disliked Mikasa and her foolish, blind devotion to Eren, but until Ymir Annie has never truly hated anyone. Her opinion of Mikasa is warm and friendly in juxtaposition to the contempt and resentment she harbors for fucking Ymir.

"Annie?" says Bertholdt. He is only a couple of meters away, his clothes dirty and his face sweaty as he dutifully picks up debris, cleans and repairs damaged streets and buildings.

Killing the two traitors to humanity would be too merciful. No, instead of being executed Bertholdt and Annie are two involuntary members of the otherwise volunteer-powered cleanup crew that is slowly but surely restoring districts to their former glory. It's been hinted they might be killed after that—or maybe they will just be used for menial hard labor for the rest of their natural lives; whichever idea seems the most appealing at the end of the cleanup project. Bertholdt, like Annie, knows better than to complain, though they've both silently concurred that being killed is far better than being caged beasts of burden, which is basically all they are now.

Annie looks up from where she has paused in her sweeping, waiting for him to get to the point. Today her task is to tidy up after Bertholdt has gone through and moved the large debris out of the way. Tomorrow they will switch tasks, just to keep things interesting.

"What's on your mind?" he asks.

Reading her must be so easy for him now. They've been at this job for two years, working together day after day, with no days off or vacations. They actually don't talk all that much, both being quiet by nature, but Annie has felt herself bond with Bertholdt all the same. He is the only ally she has left, and she is not stupid enough to let that go.

It's more than just that, though. Annie knows it's true, even if she doesn't dwell on it very often. You either come to loath or like the person you spend every day of your life with. Fortunately for Annie and her ability to cope, Bertholdt is an easy person to like. He's not intrusive, he doesn't talk much, and he seems to know whenever she's had enough of him. He's also much smarter than Annie initially gave him credit for. The conclusions that Bertholdt can piece together from a couple of tiny observations is astounding, but you would never know if you don't ask. Like Annie, he holds his cards close to his chest, always hiding behind guarded green eyes.

Annie gestures to two children watching them with huge, fascinated and terrified eyes from behind a wagon wheel about six meters away. They start and scramble over each other in their haste to get away once they notice she's spotted them. "You'd think they'd eventually get used to seeing us," she remarks.

Bertholdt glances where she's pointed, but something about his body language tells Annie that he's not impressed. A part of her resents that he is so sure she isn't telling the truth. "I wish I was still a warrior, too," he says in a voice so soft only she hears it.

His words cut straight to the heart of her grievance, though Annie makes a point of not showing it. She just looks away and goes back to sweeping, stony faced and silent. She tells herself that missing home is foolish. She's never going back, so what's the point in thinking of that place or its people?

Actually, after what her father turned her into—after what he made her do—Annie's not so certain she would go back home even if she was still a warrior who had the choice. That being said, the fact that she most definitely does not have a choice because she has been stripped of her warrior's status turns her hometown into the forbidden fruit that Annie now longs for with an increasingly aching stomach.

She forcibly pushes those thoughts out of her head and continues to sweep. Bertholdt doesn't pursue the subject, probably because he knows he's reached her. Damn that man for being so observant.

**.:;;:.**

"Do you ever regret it?" Bertholdt wonders one evening. They are sitting across from each other, eating dinner at the wooden table in the hovel they live in when they're not being forced to repair what they and their compatriots have destroyed of districts and towns. It's the prison cell that the work animals are stored in when they aren't being used. The hovel is heavily guarded, too.

Annie doesn't know what the government thinks she or Bertholdt could do now that they can't turn into titans anymore, but she's stopped asking that question. After more than two solid years of compliant imprisonment, you would think that the tension between the guards and their wards might let up a little. This isn't so. Whenever Annie looks at the guards—people she never recognizes, which she thinks may be a gesture of mercy—they always tense up and reach for their weapons as if she's about to rush them.

In the here and now, Bertholdt is still patiently waiting for her to speak. He doesn't need to specify what he's referring to. Being stuck in this tiny hovel prison cell is reference enough.

"If I allow myself to regret one thing," Annie replies, her fork loaded and hovering in front of her lips. "I would not be able to stop myself from regretting everything, and that is too much for one soul to bear."

"But you have to fight the regret."

"I don't fight anything anymore."

Bertholdt gives her a look that tells her he knows exactly what she's trying to do. Annie stares back resolutely. So he knows what she's doing—so what? That isn't going to change her behavior. "I would do it again," he confesses of himself, pushing his food around with his fork. "Even to this end. I believed in our cause."

"Don't you hate that you're now stuck in their world?"

"Hatred isn't practical," he replies, looking her in the eye. "Especially when I have no power in which to act on it. I've made my choice, I've done my best, and I can't regret it. It was always a possibility that my mission would end this way."

Annie had known that, too. She just hadn't believed that the humans would triumph after all.

There's something about the way he says it that makes her think he's come to love this world and its inhabitants, despite everything. Something about his inflection—a subtlety in it that Annie could not point out specifically if she were asked—casts Bertholdt in the relief of someone who, while probably telling the truth when he says he would do all of it again, hates himself for the people he's come to love (and subsequently hurt) along the way. He will probably never admit it aloud, at least not to her, but as much as he misses being a warrior Annie can tell that he also misses being the human soldier that people would entrust with their lives, too. They are now in a class all their own, neither here nor there.

Well, Annie supposes they could be classified as full humans now, but there is no loyalty from either party. She's not so sure she feels loyalty to her father and her hometown anymore, either. She knows that they've lost the war, but they took _Reiner_ back, and they don't even have the grace to send a scout out to look for her? Or Bertholdt? Annie can't help looking at that and concluding that her selfish loyalties don't seem so wrong after all.

**.:;;:.**

He is honored and well decorated, so perhaps it's strange to perceive this, but Eren seems to understand exactly what sort of a position Bertholdt and Annie are in. If she recalls correctly, when the government first found out about Eren's titan shifting abilities he was kept in several different dungeon cells, ordered around like a slave, and treated with the same wary mistrust that Annie now experiences on a daily basis. He took the treatment with grace and understanding, though, probably assuming that he would act the same way if the situations were reversed. He continued to give his all to the humanity that barely tolerated him, all the way to the end. As a titan, he had been an enormous help in the initial stages of the cleanup project, constantly moving boulders and enormous debris out of the way.

Yes, Annie respects Eren. He's an idiot who should really realize his true potential, but she respects him. Even now, she can't quite bring herself to hate him the way she hates the rest of humanity, and herself for losing to them.

In the beginning, when they had all been working on the cleanup project, Eren always made a point of talking to Annie and Bertholdt. At first he couldn't seem to approach them without Armin at his side (Mikasa standing protective and silent in the background as usual, weapons always a split second away from being used, but no love lost there), but he still had the will. In time, Armin's presence wasn't needed anymore (though Armin also continued to approach them on his own) and Eren's demeanor became warmer, although only to a point. None of them could forget the betrayal, but Annie noticed the real empathy in his demeanor. Eren, who had spent his entire life caged in by the Walls, who had experienced firsthand what it was like to be treated like a monster, knew exactly what it was like to long for freedom. He was one of the only humans who could understand.

"I wish I could spar with you again," he told her once, grinning. "Nobody else can teach so much while simultaneously kicking my ass."

That had actually gotten a smile out of Annie, because she had enjoyed sparring with Eren too. Now, if she does anything that might even _hint_ at potential violence, she is immediately tackled to the ground and subdued. Eren had known that, of course, but for him the sparring was a way of solidifying and/or maintaining their friendship. To go without is to let the friendship wane, and Annie knows this as well as he does.

"You always did benefit from a good ass kicking," she replied with a verifiable hint of fondness in her demeanor.

This comment had gotten Eren to laugh. "It's the only way I learn," he joked, though in reality this is almost a full-fledged truth.

That was usually about the time her ever-present guards noticed their overly familiar behavior and lack of constructive work, and came in waving their arms to break up the amiable atmosphere and shoo Eren off. There wasn't much else they could do to one of humanity's exalted heroes, though, so it was never a surprise that Eren was came back at least once more during the day.

Conversations with Armin weren't quite so lighthearted. Armin is far smarter than Bertholdt, and he gathers far too much information about Annie from a single look. He always managed to communicate that he was more sad than angry, and more disappointed than betrayed. He also never asked why, and the one time Annie had made a passing reference about the hovel being drafty the next day there had been a repair crew at her door to patch the cracks in the roof and walls. She is fairly sure Armin is the reason none of her guards have faces she recognizes. Armin and that brain of his are powerful, even if Armin himself doesn't know it. When he speaks, people listen—not just pretend to hear, but really _listen_. That is not an ability to scoff at.

Of course, Eren and Armin (and Mikasa) are gone now. As soon as Eren was no longer required to move the largest of the debris, they left. Annie highly doubts that any of them looked back, or that they will ever come back here. She wouldn't, if she had the choice. Freedom is worth embracing, and for those three it's the first freedom they've ever known.

No, Annie doesn't expect them to come back. She doesn't blame them, and she certainly doesn't take their absence personally. However, she also doesn't expect herself to let go of the envy she feels any time soon. It's only natural to want to be free.

**.:;;:.**

Their human forms are eighteen and nineteen now, and they are all each other has left. It's only natural, she thinks, that they seek each other out for things they would trust no one else to provide.

Sex is not graceful, or beautiful, or even really heartfelt for Annie, but it is satisfying. It's one of the few things she has to look forward to, and Bertholdt must agree because he almost never says no. Annie likes it when he's behind her, their skin slapping so sharply that her nerves sizzle, forcing her to forget everything except for the here and now. It's her escape, and the outlet for the aggression she can no longer work out with training or martial arts without being instantly subdued for allegedly attacking someone.

Perhaps if she could still do those things she wouldn't want sex to be a fight as much as she does now, but as things are Annie confronts Bertholdt again and again with the fierceness she only looks like she can continue bottling up without exploding. She knows she can trust him with that, just as he knows that he can trust her not to say anything about his guilt-laden nightmares or the tenderness that he shows in the aftermath, kissing her until neither of them can breathe as he caresses the sensitive spots that sometimes form bruises.

Bertholdt always blanches and looks culpable when he sees them, but Annie doesn't mind the bruises. They prove to her, more than anything, that she has not lost herself. All she's ever been is a fighter; being sore the next day gives her the sensation of normalcy and accomplishment. Getting them from someone that she likes and respects and has bonded with gives them a layer of intimacy that only a fellow fighter could understand. The loophole is that, apparently, it doesn't matter where the soreness comes from. Bertholdt clearly understands, otherwise he wouldn't participate; it's not Annie's problem if he second guesses himself when it's all said and done.

Well, maybe it is her problem. She's still trying to work that part out.

**.:;;:.**

"Do you think they really let Reiner come back?"

Bertholdt speaks about his old childhood friend every once in a while, but he thinks about Reiner far more often than that. Annie can tell. It's the sort of concern one might have for a severely handicapped brother who has insisted on being more independent. After growing up together, and working undercover for three years, Bertholdt feels responsible for Reiner and his deteriorating sense of self. It bothers him that he doesn't know what his friend is doing these days, and/or if Bertholdt could have helped, if he was around.

"It's hard to say," is Annie's professional opinion. "He has valuable intel about the human world, but he's damaged and unstable, and so the information is probably suspect. They probably listened to everything he had to say, then killed him and sent a scout to observe the human world and test the validity his information."

Well, that's what Annie would do anyway.

If they are in the hovel (which they usually are when this question comes up), Bertholdt will grimace at the harshness of her assessment. If they are in public, he will simply look away and go silent. How long that lasts depends on what else happens during the day, but Bertholdt is capable of holding his tongue for hours on end. Annie is also capable of this, but it's different when you are the one it's being done to.

This time, they are speaking in the hovel. Bertholdt seems so troubled by her theory about Reiner's demise that Annie suddenly feels guilty for saying it at all. Guilt is not an emotion that she is familiar with. It makes her skin crawl and her heart clench behind her ribcage. She will do anything to make those sensations go away.

"Of course," she says. "Last I checked, our homeland directors weren't as cruel as I am. They probably gave him medical treatment instead of killing him."

Bertholdt gives her a funny look, clearly wondering what she's trying to do. This is unlike her, admittedly, but it is also unlike her to feel guilt.

"He probably misses having his partner around, as well," Annie says, trying to make it better.

This only befuddles Bertholdt more. His dark eyebrows dip together as he observes her like she's some interesting new species he's never laid eyes on before. "Annie," he starts.

"Forget it." Annie physically waves her hand to brush off the questions, her strange behavior, the guilt—everything. It's not worth it. She leaves the hovel to go somewhere else. Just… somewhere that isn't here. Somewhere she can be alone. If she avoids the good neighborhoods, she won't see any of the people from the 104th Trainee Squad, and everybody else doesn't matter. As long as she makes a point of ignoring the ever-present guards she never sees twice, she will consider herself alone.

These days, not having Bertholdt around _is_ being alone.

**.:;;:.**

Annie doesn't have many places that she likes being. In this territory, there aren't any places worth being. It's all the same, in her mind. It's the same biome, the same people cringing away and hissing in hatred whenever they see her face, the same damn rubble to clean up everywhere she goes. She could go a hundred kilometers in any direction, and nothing would change.

Annie misses the walls, a little. She doesn't miss what they represented, or what they had inside of them, but she misses their height. Being able to stand fifty meters above the ground and see far away is the most freedom she is permitted anymore. Now, with the walls of titan-flesh long decomposed, she doesn't even have that. The best she can get is climbing forty-five meters to the top of the one tall tree that hasn't been logged for rebuilding houses.

She has her escorts, of course. The first time she tried to do this they subdued her, shouting about suicide attempts as they forcibly ground her face into the ground, but now they aren't as jumpy. Once they see that's what she's aiming to do half stay on the ground while the rest use 3D maneuver gear to get to the top, and then they just stand on the uppermost branches watching her slowly climb up to join them. Once she finally gets there Annie is sweaty and out of breath, but she stays up there as long as Bertholdt can stay stubbornly silent, so it's worth it.

She finds that she thinks about nothing and everything while she's at the top of that tree, staring out at crops and houses and roads and the occasional ribbon of blue-green river. Sometimes she tries to find the ocean, squinting in the breeze that never stops and looking as far away from here as she can. That's where Armin and Eren (and Mikasa) are, she's willing to bet. They are wherever the ocean is. Maybe where the river meets the ocean, brackish water soaking the sand in between their toes.

Well, maybe that's not where they are, but that's where Annie wants to be. She wishes she could be tall again—fourteen meters is nothing to sneeze at, and seeing over the tops of all of the buildings… When she was in her titan form, she could do anything. There is nothing quite like it. She wishes she could feel that way again in this tiny, fragile human body. If she could, maybe being stuck in this place where nothing changes wouldn't be so bad.

Climbing down the tree is just as, if not more, tedious than climbing up. She eventually meets her guards at the bottom, and strides back to the hovel as if nothing has happened. Because, really, in the grand scheme of things nothing has.

**.:;;:.**

The bruises are worse than usual today. It doesn't bother Annie (she had personally found the sex more exciting and satisfying than usual), but Bertholdt hasn't looked at her all day. The bruises aren't actually in any conspicuous places, but he saw her get dressed this morning and that's how he knows. Annie can only tolerate being avoided for so long before she gets that skin-crawling and chest-constricting sensation again.

"Hey," she says as soon as they're alone in the relative privacy of the hovel.

"Hm?" Bertholdt isn't looking up from where he's untying his shoes.

Annie moves until she is standing right in front of him, staring hard, demanding without words to be looked upon. It takes a minute or so, a veritable battle of the wills, but Bertholdt eventually relents. He can't seem to help the wince that contorts his features as his eyes rest briefly on the parts of her body that are covered by clothing.

That does it. Annie grabs his chin and forces him to look her in the eye, green on steely blue. "No," she says, pronouncing the word very carefully. Then she kisses him. She's actually not very good at kissing (usually she waits for Bertholdt to take point), but she makes an honest effort now because she knows that it's a gesture he values deeply. She doesn't know how else to show him that to have him ignore her is like being alone far longer than she wants to be. Bertholdt is all she has; he's the only reason she's stayed sane these last few years. To have the only one that matters shut you out is even worse than the thought of never being a warrior again.

Annie doesn't know why or how it took her this long to realize how important this relationship is to her, but now that she has she can admit to herself that she doesn't want it to be tarnished.

Apparently she doesn't communicate this very well through the kiss, because he wrenches his head away and stares at her as if she's become someone unfamiliar to him. "Annie, what…?" But he doesn't seem to know how to finish the question, and so just shakes his head and continues to stare.

"If you don't like something I've done or asked of you, show it," she tells him plainly. "Don't just look away like you can't see me."

It takes a moment for this statement to really register with Bertholdt, but when it does his mouth opens in a tiny 'Oh'. His green eyes are new as he sees her now, taking in the person that needed almost three years to start trying, tentatively hopeful and far too tender for this to simply be a reaction to this one dispute.

During the war, Annie hadn't cared to notice Bertholdt's feelings for her either way. They had been in a _war,_ what time did she have to waste on that sort of thing? Of course, being imprisoned together has given her plenty of time to start noticing. Annie supposes she just assumed that he would get over it as time passed, but instead the crush has turned into something else, something deeper.

It's impossible to say whether things would have ended this way if they had managed to escape to their hometown with Reiner nearly three years ago. It also doesn't matter. Reality is the one in which they share a hovel, perform slave labor during the day, and will be guarded every hour of every day for the rest of their lives. Reality is that they are all each other has left of any person that ever mattered, and reality is that that might actually be enough after all. Whether it is all merely adaptive radiation or not is moot, because that doesn't make the emotions or this situation any less real.

Bertholdt stares at her a little longer, searching for something that, if his subsequent expression is indicative of anything, he finds somewhere in the way she is holding herself. They've been in close quarters for so long that he doesn't have a hard time reading her. Annie is as easy for him to understand as himself.

"I love you, Annie." He says it like it's a truth she has yet to figure out, pronouncing it like a challenge he wants her to meet head on, the blades of two swords clashing loudly in what should be silence.

Annie looks right back at him. She's not hesitant, and she's not afraid. She knows exactly what she's getting herself into, and she _wants_ it. Perhaps a part of her has always wanted it—after all, why else would she have stayed here all this time, if not for that? "I know," she says. It's the only words she needs to utter in order to get her point across. For people like Annie and Bertholdt, people who nurse silence more often than conversation, words only get you halfway.

**.:;;:.**

Annie doesn't exactly see what's so great about lying perpendicular to each other with Bertholdt's head on her abdomen, but he seems to like it so she doesn't point out that it makes reading his body language somewhat difficult at times. It's not so bad, really. A part of her sort of enjoys the casualness of the contact, as well, and she's pretty sure that's the point.

She finds that she craves a fight less and less often these days. She's started doing small exercises in the early mornings before the guards get suspicious and start hammering on the hovel's single door, and again in the evenings just before dinner, and that helps her to get rid of her extra energy. If she pushes herself, she'll even be sore the next day. That helps to make moments like this, laying with Bertholdt's head pillowed on her belly or the curve of her hip, much more relaxing.

"Before he left with Eren and Mikasa," Annie finds herself saying, murmuring into the companionable quiet. "Armin asked me if I thought it had been worth it, giving up my humanity to fight for my cause."

Bertholdt doesn't speak because he knows as well as she does that it's not necessary. Annie knows that he's listening; she doesn't need superficial vocalizations to reassure herself of what she already knows to be a fact.

"I think he was asking more to figure out how to deal with the aftermath of his own sacrifices of humanity, or to help Eren with his, than to question me about my own," she muses. She folds her arms behind her head and stares up at the roof of the hovel, the only thing left between her and the sky. "I said yes. I wouldn't have given something like that up if my cause wasn't worthy."

To this day, Bertholdt and Annie have managed to obscure the majority of their reasons for doing what they did from the government. It's one of the reasons they're still watched this closely, even nearly three years after the information became more or less obsolete. They continue to keep mum more out of habit than lingering sentimentality for their hometown at this point—at least, that's why Annie does.

Bertholdt is thoughtful and silent for a moment. Then he asks, "Would you still say yes, if Armin asked you that question now?"

"I would." This goes along with something she's mentioned before. If she allows herself to regret one single part of what she's done, she will start regretting it all. She has to continue to believe that her cause was worthy of sacrificing the humanity she's only now starting to regain, or she will go right back to feeling trapped and resentful again. Now that she isn't anymore, Annie can look back on the last few years and clearly see how those emotions warped her.

He hums. "I don't know if I could anymore."

Annie wonders about the specific reasons he might have for that, but she doesn't ask. Some thoughts are meant to stay yours alone, and she knows that better than anyone. She refrains from asking because she cares about him—and she really does; Annie cares more than she ever thought she could—not because she doesn't care to know. If Bertholdt really wants her to know, then he will tell her. She knows this for a fact, and she trusts him not to prove her wrong.

**.:;;:.**

In total, the cleanup project lasts seven full years. This is actually an impressive feat, when you think about the massive amount of damage that the human territory accrued during the war. The volunteer force was large, powerful and effective.

Annie stands next to Bertholdt on the sidelines as a lively celebration is held in honor of the finished project (as well as a plentiful fall harvest, but that is secondary in juxtaposition with this). Most of the former-volunteers are jovial and drunk, dancing to music and eating food. Annie and Bertholdt have eaten their fill, but they are not quite as carefree as their fellows. Bertholdt has his hands in his pockets, and his jaw and shoulders are tense. Annie keeps her hands free, folded with deceptive casualness behind her back. She may not have had overt hand-to-hand combat practice these last seven years, but she's kept herself lean and strong and she does practice in the limited privacy of the hovel in the early mornings and late evenings. She could still fight, if the need arose. She hasn't seen their stranger-guard in a few hours, and it piques memories of how Armin flushed the identity of the female titan out of her. She isn't about to fall for the same trick twice.

Annie and Bertholdt are now twenty-three and twenty-four years old, respectively. Other young men and women in their age bracket have young families and are optimistic about their futures, safe and titan-free and, now, free from titan-related damage and memories. Well, almost. Annie is sure there will always be several statues honoring that fucking traitor Ymir and her damn wife Historia, as well as a few for Eren, though it is likely that he (or Armin, or Mikasa) will never come back to see them.

Nevertheless, the point remains that Annie and Bertholdt have never been told what will happen to them once their slave labor for the cleanup project was over.

"We've served our purpose now, and since they can't get anything else out of us we'll probably be killed," is Annie's hypothesis.

"You always think that's how things will end," Bertholdt told her with slight exasperation.

"That's the world we live in, Bertholdt."

"No, Annie, it isn't anymore. That's the world we grew up in, that's the world we fought—but this is not that world anymore." Bertholdt gestured around the hovel, its repaired insulation and its shuttered windows. "Why else would we have such a hard time predicting what they're going to do with us, huh?"

Bertholdt has become much more outspoken in recent years. Sometimes Annie misses his reserved, quiet persona, if only because that one didn't debate with her near as often.

Unfortunately, Annie hadn't had a good response for that. Even the reactions of the people who hissed in distaste and hatred and the children who screeched and ran away when they saw humanity's traitors weren't that dramatic anymore. They still weren't welcomed by the community by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't seem that they were as hated as they used to be, either.

They were still humanity's infamous traitors. Annie can't imagine, even with Bertholdt's admittedly pertinent observations about the environment they now live in, that they will ever be forgiven and/or set free. Bertholdt isn't as convinced as he tries to appear when he's arguing with her, either—it's obvious in his guarded demeanor as they watch jovial ex-volunteers get drunk and have fun.

They spend the entirety of the celebration like this, watching and waiting for the threat that doesn't come. Then, when they've stayed at the celebration an appropriate amount of time, they walk in wary silence back to the hovel, for once not surrounded by guards in 3D maneuver gear—or any guards at all.

Annie locks the hovel's only door despite what little good it would do to hinder someone who really wanted to get in. "It isn't like them to play games like this," she mutters. "Was the food poisoned?"

"If the food was poisoned, then all of the innocent people who ate with us will also be dead come morning," Bertholdt says reasonably. "It was a buffet, not single-servings."

"They once sent twenty-thousand people to their deaths for the simple reason of reducing the population," says Annie. "I wouldn't put it past them to poison the volunteers that helped to clean up their territory."

"They wanted to reduce the population so that the entire territory wouldn't starve. As unethical as it was, there was a logical reason behind it. Would it really be worth it to kill all of those useful people—people who can and will be repopulating the human race, who are needed to flesh out the gene pool—just to get to us?"

"I don't trust it." Annie looks towards the bathroom, wondering if it would be worth it to force herself to vomit. She decides against it. The food is probably too well digested for that to do any good at this point. "I don't trust that we haven't seen the guards in hours."

"Maybe they got called off."

"Why would they get called off?"

"Because we're not a threat anymore, and we've done seven years' worth of hard labor putting cities and towns back together. What more could they want from us?"

"Our lives, for all of the lives we've taken."

"I thought you said you didn't regret anything."

That _would_ be what he latched on to. "I'm thinking tactically, Bertholdt," she says evenly. "If I were this government, or this community, that is probably the last thing I would let go. It's your fault those twenty-thousand were sent to their deaths—do you really think they forgot, or that they forgave you, just because you picked up some rocks and swept some streets for seven years?"

Bertholdt goes very quiet at that. Annie realizes in an instant that her point was far sharper than she intended to make it.

"I shouldn't have said that."

"You aren't wrong." He says it, but he's distant. Annie knows that all of the people that the colossal titan killed, directly and inadvertently, are never too far from his mind. What she didn't know was how much a reminder from her would wound him. Now she wishes the words had never left her. A fight amongst themselves is the last thing they need right now, with an ambush or their murders such a real threat.

That chest-tightening, skin-prickling sensation Annie gets when she knows she's in the wrong is now here with full potency. Words will only make things worse, so she steps closer to him, aiming for some kind of physical contact that could accurately convey her apology. If they want to survive this night and the next couple of days, they need to maintain unity. He can be as angry and hurt as he wants later—but, her poor choice of words aside, this is _not_ the time.

She pauses at Bertholdt's reproachful expression. Whatever she is willing to offer, he isn't willing to accept right now.

"I can't change what I did, or who I was," he says with careful diction, still eyeing her with such reproach that she doesn't come nearer. "I don't expect to be forgiven, but I expect to be given a chance at redemption. To kill me now shows a complete and utter lack of humanity, which mankind claims to have in spades. It would be self-contradictory."

"That's far too rational. The government would never think like that."

"Some of them will. Others will think like you."

"Which part?"

"All of it."

"No," she says, her skin crawling uncomfortably. "Not all of it."

Bertholdt doesn't speak, but he does give her a look that clearly asks "In what ways will those people differ from your pessimism?"

"They won't claim to be your partner," says Annie, looking right into those green eyes and ignoring how hard her heart has just clenched. "They will not kill a man while fighting at your side, should it come to that. I've thrown my humanity away for much less."

This seems to soften Bertholdt. In response, the pressure in her chest lessens somewhat. "I'd prefer it if you didn't," he says, frank and somewhat wry. "It's taken me seven years to get you to so much as doubt your kill-or-be-killed convictions. If I have to start back at square one…"

He's actually referring to something much bigger, because the fact that Annie has begun to doubt the truths she's kept so closely guarded for so long implies more than one might think, particularly in the context of how she relates to Bertholdt. Little by little, she's begun changing into someone less war-ready and more open to warmth. It's far more difficult for Annie than it was for Bertholdt, but the longer she knows him the better she comes to realize that he's always been up to the challenge because he's loved and admired and respected her for far longer than she gives him credit for. When she's giving up those old convictions, she's actually giving in to the idea that she could live a life where those old customs aren't necessary, and it makes her far more considerate and open than she would otherwise be. That's the thing that Bertholdt doesn't want to go away, if Annie isn't mistaken, because he most definitely likes that side of her better than the one that goads him into fights and bruises to get some sense of control.

The uncomfortable sensations go away at this small offer of peace between them. Annie even finds herself smiling a little—just a little, but it's enough to get him to put his hands on her shoulders. Bertholdt has always been tall, but he's much taller now than he was seven years ago, hovering at about two meters. Annie, who has always been petite (though perhaps not as petite as Historia, and definitely more athletic) has to look up to keep seeing his face. She likes Bertholdt's face; it's got the right symmetry, the right arrangement of features, that she never gets bored up.

Bertholdt gives her shoulders a comfortable squeeze before his palms fall to his sides. For them, especially in this situation, it's probably the equivalent of a long-lasting embrace. "If it comes to it, I want to deal the kill blow. After all, what difference is adding a handful more to twenty-thousand?"

Annie debates arguing over this, because honestly she's better at killing small numbers than he is, but she also knows that the killing isn't really what he's aiming to prevent, it's the aftermath of the killing. She lets him have this. All truth told, she sort of prefers how relaxed she's been these last few years anyway.

It actually doesn't come to killing, or even hand to hand combat. Nothing happens. They wait in high-strung anticipation for an entire month for the blow that's sure to strike, but it doesn't ever come. It's as if they really have been forgotten, or someone high up the ladder has decided that it's better to just keep them caged within the human territory and let them be. They both get jobs that offer a modest income to live off of, and start saving what they can to update the hovel and make it… well, less hovel-like would be a good start.

"This feels like Armin's doing," Annie decides. The thought has been bouncing around in her head for a while, but this is the first time she's voiced it aloud. It just sounds right.

Bertholdt raises his eyebrows. "Armin," he says dubiously. "Who, might I remind you, has been gone for six years now."

"He never wanted to be enemies."

"In the end, none of us did."

"You remember how the insulation was repaired?" she says, gesturing around.

Realization strikes Bertholdt instantly. "I thought that was you."

"I have no power to ask for anything—but Armin did. This situation is exactly the sort of thing he would plan out. We're expected to live and let live with the Legions now, and vice versa—that's how Armin thinks, and he has the influence to make it a reality."

"It's possible," Bertholdt admits after a few moments of thought. "It would actually make a lot of sense, all things considered."

Annie waits for him to notice it too. It doesn't take long. A few seconds later he says, "If Armin planned this, then we don't have anything more to worry about. The government wouldn't have allowed itself to be convinced in the first place if it didn't want to be, and betraying Armin is a hard thing to follow through with."

They would know.

After a pause they both come to the same silent conclusion. Where would they go from here? It's true that they aren't completely free, because it's highly unlikely that they will be allowed to leave human territory or even move to a different home without drawing unwanted attention, but not being watched every moment of every day and having the freedom to choose their own jobs seems like an incredible amount of freedom after being such highly guarded prisoners these last seven years. After constantly looking over their shoulders, realizing that they didn't have to guard themselves like that is an enormous relief, a weight that's been lifted high and flung far away. It's the same basic freedom the human race fought for in the war. Annie thinks she understands that better now than she ever did before, and she's not even resentful that she shares something with the rest of the human populous.

Annie is no longer a warrior; she is a human. The idea of only being human still isn't easy for her to accept, and a part of her will always miss being powerful and fourteen meters tall, allowed to go anywhere on a whim, but Annie doesn't resent her situation as much as she used to. She has someone that has kept her sane and loved (and vice versa, she knows), and as long as that bond continues to exist she will be okay. This still isn't an ideal situation, no, but it's a start. For the first time, Annie starts to think that it may be possible for things to improve with time.

So where do they go from here? The answer is remarkably, blessedly simple: wherever they think is best.


End file.
